Iran has fallen into the trap set by Israel. It has taken the bait after months of failing to respond to a series of devastating – and humiliating – attacks, which decapitated its Lebanese militia, Hezbollah, and killed the leader of Hamas in Tehran. But the regime may have self-immolated by firing missiles at Israel
In the late summer of 2009, Andrew Neil invited me to his villa in the Côte d’Azur but didn’t say why. I was mystified. I was then political editor of The Spectator and in eight years of working closely with Andrew, the then chairman, he’d never hinted that he saw me as an editor. I
You find me in the south of France, holed up in that inn of near perfection called La Colombe d’Or in St Paul de Vence. I escape here twice a year and marvel at how little has changed since the 1950s, when it was Mecca for artists of all types, painters such as Chagall and
At home, the left sees him as cynical, conniving and corrupt; while the right sees him as tired, weak and unambitious. Abroad, he is almost universally loathed and distrusted. And yet no one can deny his Machiavellian mastery of the dirty game of politics, domestic and international. Modern history has produced only two figures who
Electricity is magical stuff. From a couple of tiny holes in a wall comes an apparently endless supply of invisible, weightless, silent ether that turns instantly into light, heat, motion or information at your command. It is a metaphor for the modern economy: we use pure energy to create useful outcomes in the real world.
Ten-year-old Shen Hangping was walking to school when he was stabbed. Japanese on his father’s side, Chinese on his mother’s, he was a pupil at the Japanese School in Shenzhen. There are only a small number of these expat schools across China, and they have recently become targets of Chinese nationalist anger. Shenzhen was the
On a Saturday morning, no life stirs. The village café is closed and the ancient church of St Beuno’s is locked and deserted. Beside the stone porch stands a dusty glass case that advertises church services and parish gatherings. Not a single event is scheduled. This is the peaceful village of Botwnnog (pronounced Bot-oon-awg) in
The other day, clearing out boxes, I stumbled on a sheaf of invitations from childhood. Decorated with trains and fairies, they are very similar to those my children still (just about) receive today, except there’s usually a Thelwell pony instead of Elsa from Frozen. The handwritten addresses, the names of the houses and streets (Bluebell
